Money Saving Tip – Put a Dry Towel in the Dryer to Reduce Drying Time

Drying clothes has to be one of the biggest energy sucks in the whole house. I live in a neighborhood where clothes lines are a no-no, so my dryer and I have to learn to work together.

One way to significantly cut down on drying time is to toss a super absorbent DRY towel into the dryer along with the wet clothes. The towel will absorb a lot of the excess moisture. The key is to remove the towel about 15 minutes into the drying time, though, or it will redistribute the moisture as it drys. Having one towel just for this purpose in the laundry room works pretty well. Then, you can hang the towel on a hanger and allow it to dry before you need it for the next batch of laundry.

~Mavis

Want to save even more money? Try making your own laundry detergent. Here are my favorite recipes:

I don’t generally dry my clothes outside on a line even though there are no restrictions, just because it’s often windy enough to cause problems. But I don’t have a dryer either — I hang things on a folding wooden rack inside.

Of course it helps that I am in an arid area (everything except blue jeans and towels is usually dry within a few hours) and that I have a household of one so not a huge amount of laundry.

I like the indoor line with a fan idea — the fan uses way less electricity than the dryer!

When I lived in the desert you would sometimes see people putting their sheet out on the sage bushes to dry. They said it makes the sheet smell like the sage. I wonder what people would say about the laundry draped all over the front bushes. Its funny how different areas respond to things like laundry. I live in an area where people have stopped when I was hanging clothes out to say how much they enjoy seeing the laundry on the line, it reminds them of when they were kids.

Decided from the onset I wouldn’t live in a neighborhood where I couldn’t have clothesline, but that’s beside the point, right? If the weather is not right for hanging outside, I have 2 drying racks. in the winter its nice, cuz it adds just a little more moisture into the air. can you put a drying rack on your back stoop outside to at least do jeans and towels? I have a family member who lives in a “clothes line Nazi neighborhood”, and does this. so far, she’s gotten away with it.

Hi Mavis! We also live in one of those neighborhoods that considers hanging your tidy whities outside unsightly. Heck, even Martha Stewart had an article about clothes lines years ago in her magazine. So you’d think it would be fashionable, right? And with everyone supposedly so energy conscious??? Anyhow, enough ranting. Living in the south we don’t have a basement so the garage takes it place. That being said, I have a clothesline strung across it and am able to dry as we have a sliding screen door across the garage opening (in front of the door) so I get air circulation. I also have a large wooden rack that have I used for over 20 years. So I rarely run my dryer. Sometimes my towels are stiff so that’s when I add fabric softener. I love hanging out clothes!

I am intrigued as to why washing lined outside are a no,no. I am in the uk and am contemplating a campaign that every household with enough space should have both a clothesline (and use it) and chickens. I could soap box forever about the chickens!

You can’t have a clothesline?? Barbaric. You can have chickens, but not a clothesline… very weird.
I hang my laundry inside during the winter, and on rainy summer days. If you have a room with a ceiling fan it works great, otherwise just use a plug in fan. In the winter I put the drying rack over a heat vent, and everything is dry by morning.
I love your blog by the way.